My thoughts on software engineering

Web forms. They are used everywhere. Yet I have seen so many things done in them, that have made it difficult for even myself (a tech-savvy user, a web developer) to fill in. This should not happen. Filling in web forms is required for many reasons, yet to many users continue reading…

My life as a CodeClub volunteer consists mainly of complaining about wonderful public transport options and working with a program called Scratch. In this post, I will talk about the latter, as it is probably more interesting 😉 Scratch is an interactive, drag-and-drop programming language that allows users to make continue reading…

One of the many things I am is a STEM Ambassador. I have talked about this in a previous blog post, but STEM Ambassadors are volunteers that support sessions and run clubs and other activities in schools. I've been wanting to run a CodeClub for a while. Codeclub a volunteer-led continue reading…

I recently wanted to back up my LUKS-encrypted disk. However, clonezilla only offered the ability to clone with dd, rather than the faster partclone tool, which is understandable. It is, however, possible to clone the (decrypted) underlying extfs filesystem. Note: if you make a backup of your decrypted data, it continue reading…

If you're not aware, Mozilla, the non-profit behind Firefox, has their own smartphone and mobile Operating System, FirefoxOS. I got one of the phones at Mozfest, and ever since, I've been wanting to hack it to make it work exactly the way I want it. It's open source, and all continue reading…

About a week ago, I heard that the socialcoding4good community manager Emma Irwin was running an OpenHatch session at the University of Victoria (in Canada!) OpenHatch sessions are meant to help students get started in contributing to Open Source software. Emma was also going to show them how to contribute continue reading…

I’m a generally quiet person, but if you ask me about open source projects, I’ll go on about them forever (I even had someone interview me about it). So, I thought I should finally get all of my honest thoughts down on my own blog as well! freenode (or the continue reading…

Yesterday I made my Raspberry Pi function as a router! It took me a long time, mostly because I was using my own custom compiled kernel (don’t worry, you don’t have to do that). There’s probably already enough blogs on the subject, but I thought I’d make one, too! Prerequisites continue reading…

Need to copy files from an old home encrypted with ecryptfs? Whether you’re doing it off a livecd or a new installation, at least in Ubuntu 14.04 it’s simple. First, install ecryptfs-recover-private $ sudo apt-get install ecryptfs-recover-private Now, ensure the device you want to recover from is mounted: /dev/sdXY is continue reading…

IRC is a great medium for communities to get together, answer users’ questions and collaborate. Although it may seem primitive, its low-bandwidth consumption and wide variety of ways to access it make it an ideal way for people to connect from any location or background. There are virtually unlimited clients continue reading…